Speaking Out of Place

Today on Speaking Out of Place I talk with the intellectual, writer, and activist Hilton Obenzinger about his remarkable life as all those things. He starts by talking about his earliest exposure to art and politics, as both a witness to and participant in such moments as the takeover of the Office of the President at Columbia University in 1968, the Farm Worker’s strike in California, the fight for the I-Hotel in Manilatown, activism around Indigenous rights in the 70s, to his work in the anti-apartheid movement and the anti-Zionist struggle for Palestinian rights, and finally to his recent work on Stanford’s Chinese Railroad Workers History project and his poetry on living through the pandemic, environmental crises, and the fascism of the Trump era. Winner of an American Book Award, and a published scholar, Hilton Obenzinger has been the embodiment of an engaged writer through some of the most important moments in US and world history.Hilton Obenzinger writes poetry, fiction, criticism, and history. His books include Witness: 2017-2020, Treyf Pesach [Un-Kosher Passover], an autobiographical novel Busy Dying, How We Write: The Varieties of Writing Experience at Stanford University, Cannibal Eliot and the Lost Histories of San Francisco, American Palestine: Melville, Twain and the Holy Land Mania, New York on Fire [selected by The Village Voice as one of the best books of the year], and This Passover Or The Next I Will Never Be in Jerusalem, which received the American Book Award. Born in Brooklyn, he participated in the Columbia University rebellion of 1968, graduated in 1969, helped to operate a community printing press in San Francisco’s Mission District, and was active in the anti-imperialist, Native American, and Palestine solidarity movements. He taught writing, literature and American studies at Stanford University, and is Associate Director Emeritus of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America project. 

In this episode of Speaking Out of Place, we talk with Malcolm Harris, author of a new book entitled, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World.  Working our way back from the recent meltdown of the Silicon Valley Bank and the massive, toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, to the founding of the city of Palo Alto by Leland Stanford as a haven from labor unrest in San Francisco and his first endeavor there, the world’s largest stock farm, to the founding of the university that bears his son’s name, we discover the ghostly presence of Capital.From there we move to an in-depth study of Herbert Hoover and the Hoover Institution, and the formation of Silicon Valley itself.Throughout, we find a common thread that links all. This thread is a continuous, if evolving, effort to sort out people into two groups--those that Nature has deemed superior, from those who are meant to serve. This is the “Palo Alto System.”Inspired in part by the rash of suicides at Harris’s alma mater, Palo Alto High School, the author notes that the railroad tracks upon which these young people perished were laid by Leland Stanford, and that the Valley is haunted by the ghosts of people whose lives were destroyed by the “Palo Alto System.We end by discussing his audacious proposal—to give the land back to the Muwekma Ohlone, the first of the dispossessed peoples.Malcolm Harris is a freelance writer and the author of Kids These Days, Shit is Fucked Up and Bullshit, and Palo Alto.

Recently the US State Department withdrew its nomination of eminent international human rights scholar Jim Cavallaro, solely on the basis of some tweets in which he called out Israeli apartheid and the undue influence of AIPAC (America-Israel Public Affairs Committee--a pro-Israel lobbying group). In 2019, Israel deported Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, for issuing reports calling out similar human rights violations. In this episode, we talk to both of them about their individual cases, and then do a deep dive into the difficulties of exposing Israel's violations of human rights, and talk about ways the message is getting out, nonetheless.James (Jim) Cavallaro is a visiting professor at Columbia, UCLA and Yale and a professor of the practice at Wesleyan University.  He is also the Executive Director of the University Network for Human Rights. He has taught human rights law and practice for nearly a quarter century, most recently at Yale Law School (Spring 2020), Stanford Law School (2011-2019), and Harvard Law School (2002-2011). In June 2013, Cavallaro was elected to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He served as President of that body from 2016-2017.Professor Cavallaro has worked in human rights for more than three decades. He received his BA from Harvard University and his JD from Berkeley Law School. He also holds a doctorate in human rights and development (Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain). In 1994, he opened a joint office for Human Rights Watch and the Center for Justice and International Law in Rio de Janeiro and served as director, overseeing research, reporting, and litigation before the Inter-American system’s human rights bodies. In 1999, he founded the Global Justice Center, a leading Brazilian human rights NGO. Cavallaro has authored or co-authored dozens of books, reports, and articles on human rights issues, a list of which is available below. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and Portuguese and also speaks Italian and French.Omar Shakir serves as the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, where he investigates human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza and has authored several major reports, including a 2021 report comprehensively documenting how Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians. As a result of his advocacy, the Israeli government deported Omar in November 2019. Prior to his current role, he was a Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he focused on US counterterrorism policies, including legal representation of Guantanamo detainees.As the 2013-14 Arthur R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow at Human Rights Watch, he investigated human rights violations in Egypt, including the Rab’a massacre, one of the largest killings of protesters in a single day. A former Fulbright Scholar in Syria, Omar holds a JD from Stanford Law School, where he co-authored a report on the civilian consequences of US drone strikes in Pakistan as a part of the International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic, an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Affairs, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford.

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, a scholar activist, discusses challenges in teaching about Palestine, navigating activism at San Francisco State, controversies over Palestinian imagery on campus, obstacles in establishing international collaborations, and defending activism against accusations of anti-Semitism. The conversation sheds light on the personal and professional struggles faced by advocates for Palestinian rights.

How does the automobile—the All American symbol of freedom--become part of a “cascading” process of unfreedom for recently incarcerated people?  Livingston and Ross, members of the NYU Prison Education Research Lab, talk about how cars, a necessity for securing work for so many and a symbol of independence and mobility, are enmeshed within interlinked systems that create and perpetuate debt, precarity, and sometimes death.  Through predatory lending, unscrupulous auto dealers, revenue-seeking and gratuitously harassing traffic stops and citations, and data systems built into the hardware and software of vehicles that feed into a number of dangerous data bases, the “open road” can become dangerous and deadly, especially for Black and Brown peoples, who often succumb to what Livingston calls the “power of capture.”Against that bleak picture, Ross and Livingston tell stories of support networks and offer us important ways to bring about what they call “Mobility Justice.”“As cornerstones of life under racial capitalism, the automobile and prison exemplify the ease with which the quotidian can become deadly. Livingston and Ross, with the support of formerly incarcerated peer researchers, have produced an extraordinary example of how critical carceral studies can enlighten, complicate and inspire.” Angela Y. Davis.Andrew Ross is a social activist and professor at NYU, where he teaches in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis and the Prison Education Program. A contributor to the Guardian, the New York Times, The Nation, and Al Jazeera, he is the author or editor of twenty-five books, including, most recently, Sunbelt Blues: The Failure of American Housing. Julie Livingston is Silver Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at New York University. Her previous books include Self-devouring Growth: a Planetary Parable as Told from Southern Africa; Improvising Medicine: An African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic; and Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, in 2013 Livingston was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. 

Today Professor Jennifer Freyd speaks out against institutional betrayal, specifically about issues of sexual harassment and violence. We talk about what happens when institutions of higher education, which are supposed to be nurturing young people, teaching them to be better citizens and contributors to society, end up betraying them when they are mistreated.  We talk in particular about the effects this has on students who enter universities hoping to become professors themselves, only to be betrayed by their own departments. Jennifer helps us understand why both individuals and departments deny betrayal, and she makes a forceful argument for changing that state of things. She ends by talking about hope and the future, and the work of her non-profit Institute for Institutional Courage.Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD, is a researcher, author, educator, and speaker.  Freyd is the Founder and President of the Center for Institutional Courage, Professor Emerit of Psychology at the University of Oregon, and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine, Affiliated Faculty at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and Affiliated Faculty, Women's Leadership Lab, Stanford University. She is also a Member of the Advisory Committee, 2019-2023, for the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Freyd was in 1989-90 and again in 2018-19 a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Freyd currently serves as the Editor of The Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. Freyd is a widely published and renowned scholar known for her theories of betrayal trauma, institutional betrayal, institutional courage, and DARVO. She received her PhD in Psychology from Stanford University. The author or coauthor of over 200 articles and op-eds, Freyd is also the author of the Harvard Press award-winning book Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse. Her most recent book Blind to Betrayal, co-authored with Pamela J. Birrell, was published by John Wiley, with seven additional translations. In 2014, Freyd was invited two times to the U.S. White House due to her research on sexual assault and institutional betrayal. In 2021 Freyd and the University of Oregon settled Freyd’s precedent-setting equal pay lawsuit.Freyd has received numerous awards including being named a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, an Erskine Fellow at The University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In April 2016, Freyd was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation.  Freyd was selected for the 2021 Christine Blasey Ford Woman of Courage Award by the Association for Women in Psychology.     

On this episode of “Speaking Out of Place” we talk with eminent Middle East historian Joel Beinin on a range of topics that center on the fact that for some scholars, activism and scholarship are not only compatible—they are inextricably linked.Joel will talk about his time as a union organizer in Detriot, working in the automobile industry, and how his learning Arabic was facilitated by talking with Arab autoworkers. He then talks about his first book on labor movements in Egypt. We spend some time talking about the particular challenges of teaching about the Middle East at a place like Stanford, and the effects of its historical conservatism, and current neoliberal trajectory. We end by talking about advice we would give undergraduate and graduate students today. Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University. His research and writing focus on the social and cultural history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine, and Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.He received his A.B. from Princeton University in 1970, A.M. from Harvard University in 1974, and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1982. He taught at Stanford from 1983 to 2019 with a hiatus as Director of Middle East Studies and Professor of History at the American University in Cairo in 2006-08. In 2002 he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.Beinin has written or edited twelve books, among them: A Critical Political Economy of the Modern Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021); co-edited with Bassam Haddad and Sherene Seikaly; Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2016); Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, (Stanford University Press, 1st ed. 2011, 2nd ed. 2013); co-edited with Frédéric Vairel; Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882-1954 (Princeton University Press, 1987), co-autho­red with Zachary Lockman; and Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation (South End Press, 1989) co-edited with Zachary Lockman.His articles have been published in leading scholarly journals as well as Jacobin, Democracy in Exile, Jewish Currents, +972 webzine, Carnegie Papers, The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, Middle East Report, Jadaliyya, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, and several blogs. Joel has been interviewed on Al-Jazeera TV, BBC radio, (US) National Public Radio, and many other TV and radio programs throughout the world as well by the global print media.His work has been translated into Arabic, Hebrew, French, and Turkish. 

In today's show I speak with Richard Falk about his recent autobiography—Public Intellectual:  The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim. Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University (1961-2001) and Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, Queen Mary University London. Since 2002 has been a Research Fellow at the Orfalea Center of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Between 2008 and 2014 he served as UN Special Rapporteur on Israeli Violations of Human Rights in Occupied Palestine.Falk has advocated and written widely about ‘nations’ that are captive within existing states, including Palestine, Kashmir, Western Sahara, Catalonia, Dombas.He is Senior Vice President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, having served for seven years as Chair of its Board. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. He is co-director of the Centre of Climate Crime, QMUL.Falk has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times since 2008.His recent books include (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance (2014), Power Shift: The New Global Order (2016), Palestine Horizon: Toward a Just Peace (2017), Revisiting the Vietnam War (ed. Stefan Andersson, 2017), On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (ed. Stefan Andersson & Curt Dahlgren, 2019.Praise for his autobiography include:“This intimate and penetrating account of a remarkable life is rich in insights about topping ranging from the academic world to global affairs to prospects for livable society. A gripping story, with many lessons for a troubled world.”--Noam Chomsky“Richard Falk is one of the few great public intellectuals and citizen pilgrims who has preserved his integrity and consistency in our dark and deep content times period this wise and powerful memoir is a gift that bestows us with a tear-soaked truth and blood-stained hope.” --Cornel West “Richard Falk recounts a life well spent trying to bend the arc of international law toward global justice. A Don Quixote tilting nobly at real dragons. His culminating vision of a better and even livable future--a necessary utopia--evokes with urgent the slogan of Paris May 1968: ‘Be realistic: Demand the impossible’”--Daniel EllsbergWhile a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Falk wrote his prescient 1972 book, This Endangered Planet: Prospects and Proposals for Human Survival.    

Join the discussion with Liza Featherstone as they analyze political dynamics, addressing social issues like crime, homelessness, and labor. They critique Democrats' lack of care for workers, discuss youth voter engagement, and the importance of tackling climate change in the upcoming election.

Interviews with organizers, strikers, and faculty participating in the University of California strike, and their counterparts at the University and  College Union strike in the UK give us critical background information on both, talk with us from the front lines, and urge for global strikes for decent wages, strong pensions, and an education that teaches us how to work for a better world.  As you listen to these extended conversations, you will be learn how both strikes respond to precarious labor, casualization, wage discrimination against people of color, women, and people with disabilities, and the ballooning salaries of the administrative class, and how both university systems siphon money meant for education into real estate assets and other "fixes" for capital investment. You will the outraged, but also inspired. To contribute to the UC strikers, use PayPal:  feeducrgradstrikers@gmail.com